Don't Wait Up - Sparia
by TinAlbert
Summary: Aria realises who she really wants to be with. Sparia, light M for sex references, nothing too graphic. Slight Ezra bashing, not too heavy, sorry if you like him! All reviews welcome!


**A/N This is part of the 101 prompt challenge, gotta love Sparia! Light M, I guess, no graphic sex, but a few too many references to be T, I think… All reviews appreciated! **

_Don't Wait Up _

Some say kissing is a way of showing affection to others - a way to claim possession over something or someone, or a declaration of love. Others say that kissing is an act of passion, that the best, most powerful kisses are the ones that come in the heat of the moment, driven by primal instinct, lust, the fire of young lovers. Some still claim that kissing is an action to comfort, familiarity, a way of showing commitment and trust.

This is none of those things.

This? This is just a movement of lips, a formality. There are no loving caresses or desperate pushing for more. This isn't about need, or even want. This happens because it has to, because it's expected. Can he feel my indifference? Can he sense that, though my body is in his arms, my mind is far away, in someone else's entirely?

Ezra pushes his lips against mine, and I try to reply with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. His tongue runs against my bottom lip, asking for the permission that he knows I won't refuse – how could I, when I am Aria and he is Ezra, the forbidden young lovers, in our beautiful, fairy-tale romance?

Well, that's what we call it, but even Ezra must have realised by now that his boyish charm doesn't leave me swooning the way it used to, that the cute half-smile of his merely grates on me rather than send my heart aflutter. Even his poetry, the lines he used to whisper to me as I fell asleep in his arms, what feels like years ago, holds no attraction anymore. We are stale, cold, empty.

How is it possible, to go from this, this coldness, to being set ablaze by a single touch? How can it be, that as Ezra's hands clumsily paw at my shirt, I know of another, one whose soft touches melt me with every gentle brush of the fingers. How can it be that Ezra, the self-titled tortured poet, the teacher every student fantasizes about, pales so sharply beside her? Ezra is smooth, calm. He recites poems and rocks me to sleep, and everything is very safe – boring - with him.

But Spencer is different. Spencer is sharp, quick. Her passion for everything she does shines through in all she does. She can turn anything exciting, just by the way her face lights up when she talks! She's fierce, and protective, and when she loves you like she loves me, then you need never be afraid.

God, I miss her.

As I lie with Ezra, wishing the gentle eyes looking at me were a lighter pair, just as brown as his, but so much sharper and so much brighter, I can't help but compare. When his clumsy fingers pick at the buttons of my shirt, trying over and over again to unhook it, the memory of Spencer, tracing her fingers up and down my sides - in no rush, just enjoying the anticipation and suspense - fills my mind. When he pulls vainly at the hooks of my bra, prompting me to reach up to help him, to put him out of his misery, I can't help but think about the shivers of excitement I got when I reached up to run my fingers along the lace of Spencer's. There's no competition.

As the night goes on, all the little comparisons build up. Suddenly, I find myself staring into the eyes of the man I once swore I'd die with, and feeling... Nothing?

The realisation that I am lying in bed, entangled with a man I care so little about, disgusts me. Slowly, the shame, for myself and my situation, rises up in me in great waves, and a shudder runs down my spine.

I can't do this anymore. The time to do the unthinkable has come – to say _no._ There's no denying Ezra loves me, and the guilt I feel as I slip out of his bed, trying not to think about the hurt and confusion that I saw in in his eyes, is almost unbearable. But there's another who loves me more, and her love burns with a passion that extinguishes everything in its way – as does mine for her.

Quickly, pulling on my clothes as I go, I head to the door, and hurriedly send a text.

_[To: Spencer]_

_My house. 5 minutes. Love you x - Aria_

Ezra, my darling, don't wait up. Tonight, I'm chasing fire.


End file.
